Word spread rapidly through the borough last week, like rats scampering through a subway car. The place was to be invaded.

Were interlopers spreading violence? Or had slumming celebrities trained their sights on our shores? Not quite. This incursion was by forces far more sinister.

Walmart.

On Monday, The Brooklyn Papers reported that the giant purveyor of discount orange juice and underwear six-packs was to open a massive store in a new development on the fringes of Flatbush Avenue near Kings Plaza, spreading jobs, bargains and — if you believe carping critics — pain. By Tuesday, word spread like a cancer to blogs and the mainstream media.

Tuesday night, an emergency meeting was scheduled so local officials might run Walmart out of town.

“I don’t know what the idea is,” said Dorothy Turano, district manager of Community Board 18. “We could wake up one morning and find a Walmart there.”

The hearing was pushed back, due to snow. The next day, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner denied his company met with Walmart about opening a store in its planned Four Sparrows Retail Center.

Is Walmart coming? From the hysterical reaction, you’d think the Evil Empire was about to swallow the city whole. Yet the chain has not announced a single project within the five boroughs. And still, official opposition to the retailer, already in the danger zone, has risen to lunatic levels.

It will come to a head on Feb. 3 as the City Council, led by bargain-hating Council Speaker Christine Quinn, hosts Hate Walmart Day.

But to the people of New York — those who live on Flatbush Avenue and in East New York — Walmart is not just wanted. It’s desperately needed.

“We really want it,” said Rosa, a clerk at Kings Plaza. “When I was in Kentucky, they had groceries and gave jobs to senior citizens. The prices are good!”

In a park in East New York, a long Town Car drive from Manhattan, I met a dad who watched his kids. Last year, he was out of work 12 months. Now it’s going on 24. To him, Walmart is not just a store. It’s the chance for a new life.

“We need jobs,” said Malik Johnson, a laid-off laborer. “I’d work at Walmart in a heartbeat.”

Why the hostility? Public Advocate Bill de Blasio last week released studies that he said showed — aha! — that for every two jobs Walmart brings into a community, three are lost. But if you look at the numbers, you’ll see the conclusion is a crock.

One much-cited 2007 report by professors, led by David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, is “full of a ton of caveats,” said a source sympathetic to Walmart.

The study states — bear with me here — that the study’s own findings “do not imply that the growth of Walmart has resulted in lower absolute levels of retail employment . . . We suspect that there are not aggregate employment effects, at least in the longer run, as labor shifts to other uses.”

Phew! Translate that mouthful into English, and the same study that “proves” Walmart’s a job killer suggests the opposite may be true. You see, when a Walmart opens, it draws new stores into the area. The result is that people get jobs. Perhaps in other industries, such as construction and hospitality. But don’t ask me. Ask the dang study.

Or ask Chicago Alderman Emma Mitts. “If I could have another store today, I’d get me another store today,” she said on a video posted online. “Because people need jobs.

“You have a big-box retail, and other, smaller stores are gonna come around and give you an economic engine, ” Mitts said.

Stop the insanity. And learn to love Walmart.

‘Take my kids, please:’ Black

Newly minted Schools Chancellor Cathie Black transformed into a Borscht Belt comedienne, joking that the final “solution” to crowded schools is “birth control.” Then, taking the Nazi metaphor to uncharted depths, Black said that school budget cuts have presented her with a “Sophie’s Choice” — a reference to the book and movie in which a mom, imprisoned in Auschwitz, has to decide which one of her children gets to live, and which one dies.

YOU CAT BE SERIOUS

Human companions of Sal Esposito, who happens to be a cat, want him removed from a Boston jury pool because he can’t speak proper English and requires a full-time litter box. Two-legged officials denied the request.

Which begs the question: Can bipeds do better than Sal? Last week, a naked, vacuum-wielding Thomas Cordero was acquitted of manslaughter after a guy he met on a boy-meets-boy Web site was stabbed to death. Cordero said he confessed to the crime only because he feared being sodomized by cops with a broomstick, like Abner Louima. A Bronx jury bought it.

I’ll take my chances with Sal. Meow once for guilty. Scratch your nose twice for not.

From rags to riches to (best of all) celeb rehab

Faster than a speeding bullet, Ted Williams went from being a homeless drug addict to a celebrity recovering addict to a celeb hassled by cops to the envy of famous people everywhere — a resident of celebrity rehab.

Since the silken-voiced Williams became an Internet sensation, he’s been deluged with job offers. Then he was questioned by cops after a fight with his daughter. Now, he’s received a prime offer he can’t possibly refuse from celeb uber-Dr. Phil McGraw — doing a stint in a private rehab facility to kick a drinking problem.

He’s a lucky guy.

Sack master 1, justice system 0

I give up. Former Giants star linebacker Lawrence Taylor paid $300 to have sex with a 16-year-old runaway. He says he thought the girl was 19, which makes no difference in the eyes of the law.

But in the eyes of celebrity justice, Taylor wins. Like a sleazy politician, Taylor insists he did not have sexual intercourse with that underage woman. And now, he’s likely to dodge even a minute in jail after pleading down from a felony to a sweet pair of misdemeanors.

There is no equal justice. Not when a guy used to know how to play football.

Subway a ‘wild’ ride

Despised transit brass should take a creative approach to the debacle of the subway rat caught on video climbing up a sleeping man’s leg and staring him in the face. Ewww.

Top officials, many of them unfamiliar with the look and smell of subway vermin, should market a ride on the No. 4 train as a great way to commune with nature. That should remove the sting when fares go up. Again.